12th Century 1100-1199

The Tower of London.

The Tower of London still stands as a symbol for the strength and greatness of the city of London, occupying a position as afortress for nearly two thousand years.

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Copyhold Tenure what does it mean?

Copyhold document
This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Property Law

If you were a Serf, you had no rights of appeal to a court outside that of your Manor, where your elied upon the biased and often harsh law of your particular lord, who might only be goverened by local custom. Copyhold tenure lifted you out of such servitude and established increased legal rights which were only abolished in 1926. Whilst the Land Registry was established in 1862, it did not record all transactions, find out how you can explore copyholders relevant to you and your history project for connections and insights that date back well before the 1837 BMD Registers…

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Evolution of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle

Anglo Saxon chronicles

The Anglo Saxon Chronicles evolved over several hundred years to become the unique resource of early historical accounts we can access online today. Read them carefully and with related documents and sources across place and time and subject and you can make some intriguing connections to the areas of history that you are interested in, find out about their origin and access them online from here…you can read the translations studya nd interpret yourself, not just rely on the layers of opinion much of which is founded on these early sources.

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Temple Church London 1185-2012

Temple Church london

The spirtual centre in the UK for the Knights Templar, how much is fable and what are the facts? From Temple to the Inns of Court, the significance of the Round, the importance of the effigies and a most extraordinary knight William Marshall together with the reason and consequence for Heraclius’s presence in London…

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The Crusades A Background

Crusades

The Crusades are a well recognized part of our history but what do we know about the background to the crusades of the C11th and C12th. What motivated men to take up arms and travel hundreds of miles to fight in a land and against a people they knew little or nothing about?

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Eleanor of Aquitaine Mother of English Kings

Mother of Kings Henry III Richard I and John

Wealthy educated and powerful and that was just at 15, married to the Kings of France and England, forging the most powerful alliance in Northern Europe with the Angevin Empire created with the marriage to Henry II, through their complex family relationships, two sons would be King of England and many of her grandchildren would form the basis of the bloodlines of the important European Kingdoms for centuries to come, this was a woman on which history pivots…

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Angevin and Plantagenet Empire

Fontevraud Abbey

What led to the downfall of the Anjevin Empire? Where does the word Plantagenet come from? When did the French last successfully invade england? A converging and connecting point in history between empires and dynasties find out more with this linked chrnology…

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Thomas Becket and Henry II

The relationship between Henry King of England and Thomas, banker turned confidant and Archbishop was probably one of the most intriguing in English history.

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King Stephen I of England 1135-1154

King Stephen

Stephen seized the Crown of England, but was always looking over his shoulder and battling with Empress Matilda dn Geoffrey of Anjou, only finally reaching a compromise that was to cost his son dealry just before his death…Henry de Blois is Kingmaker and swings between the parties as brother of Stephen did the family links count for so little, what an intriguing family…

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